Atonement
by AbbaLane
Summary: Darcy has been his typical haughty self, unfeeling in the face of Elizabeth's ruin. Elizabeth has been hardened by her degraded circumstances, but undaunted in spirit. Their meeting a year later brings something very different. Warning: completely irreverent, dark, smutty, with regency-era BDSM. One shot.


**This Regency-era story throws a lot of things upside down. A rebellion against dark and experienced Darcies. A revenge of ruined Lizzies. The story is dark and unapologetically irreverent. It is rated M for good reason, and features BDSM. You have been forewarned, so if this is not your cup of tea - please, stop reading now and continue onto any number of lovely stories out there.**

* * *

The circumstances of their last parting had not been ideal.

"I want you," he had stated openly. She had glared at him with unadulterated hatred, and he had returned her gaze with a cool one of his own. "I do not comprehend why you must be so uncooperative."

She had let out a harsh laugh. "I – uncooperative? That is stellar, coming from you, Mr. Darcy, after everything you and your family have put me through. How _dare _you proposition me?"

Her laughter, her harshness, he had matched with his own. "How dare I, indeed! Why is it, madam, that you find my five pounds so much more repulsive than the others'? Are you punishing me for failing to fall for your traps? If so, you need not bother. I understand your nature quite fully as it is."

"Do you now?"

"Yes, and if you are unwilling to let me into your well-used bed, I should have no cause to repine. It is, on the whole, a blessing." He had looked around with disdain. "I know not what I was thinking; it would be insupportable to engage in intimate activities in such a place."

Her abode had been small and decrepit. A far cry from the typical establishment of a courtesan. But then, it was to be expected; with no genteel family willing to hire her even as a lowly maid, with no man willing to offer protection of any length, she had had to scrape by. And he had thought it served her right.

He had left the filthy room without a parting bow. He had not seen her for a year since.

He had thrown himself into work. He had sworn off women. After her betrayal, he felt he could no longer trust anyone. His loneliness grew proportionately to his wealth, and still he refused to break his steadfastness. Apart from that one shameful moment of idiocy in her claustrophobic room, he had never yielded to temptation. Upright, moral, superior, _he _had nothing to be accused of.

Except that now he knew that to be patently false. How could he have believed his high-handed aunt and her scheming parson, and his own disgraceful cousin and the vicious tongues of the _ton_? How could he have allowed them to poison him against her so much that he had contributed to the ruin of the only woman he had ever loved?

It has been a month now since he knew the truth. Upon Lady Catherine's death, he and Richard assisted their cousin Anne with putting her late mother's affairs into order, diligently going through the large stashes of letters tucked away into drawers of Lady Catherine's study. The important letters of business were interspersed with idle gossip and, worse, scratches of unfinished or rewritten letters. Their late aunt appeared to have an unhealthy obsession with keeping every little scrap of paper. It was one scratch copy of a letter that shattered the illusion to which Fitzwilliam Darcy had held on so firmly all these months.

_"Nephew:_

_I have done what I could to further discredit E. Bennet. R. Collins, as promised, has thrown out the lot of them into the street. The magistrate has been paid handsomely to investigate E. Gardiner's business, and B. Philips, accused of being in cohorts with his smuggling brother-in-law, has seen his license revoked. I believe the Bennets and their extended family are now quite helpless, and very literally in the hedgerows._

_Lady V and Countess B have both been informed, through discrete channels with no trace to us, of the sordid tale. It should not be long before the entirety of London hears of E. Bennet's shameful attempts to entrap you. Her lack of virtue will become a truth universally acknowledged. At that point, it can only be a self-fulfilling prophesy: selling her body will be the only option available to her. And having set herself up as a whore, in retrospect, there can be no question in anybody's mind that you were the victim of the vicious trollop during the episode at Hunsford… if such episode is even remembered in the midst of her subsequent ruin._

_So, you see, I have helped you quite as thoroughly as anyone could. All that remains for you to do is to press your own channels of dissemination to speed up the rumor process. I will not rest until I see that hoyden openly selling herself._

_I cannot pretend that I condone the conduct on your part that has brought this about. You really ought to be more careful in your pursuits; violating gentlewomen in the homes of their friends is a risky route. Still, in this particular instance, I must say that I am quite pleased with the consequences of your abandon. That girl needed to learn her place. To think that she had once had the presumption to refuse to give up Fitzwilliam! How far she will have fallen …"_

Darcy felt sick. It was wrong, all so wrong, oh so wrong… He saw everything clearly now, and was horrified at what he saw.

His cousin, the eldest son of the Earl of Matlock, had violated Elizabeth Bennet on that fateful trip to Rosings Park. It had occurred shortly after the unfortunate death of Mr. Bennet, and Elizabeth was staying with her friend Charlotte while that friend's husband was at that very time contemplating how to best displace the Bennet family from their estate. Elizabeth Bennet – that poor, brave, wonderful girl! – refused to keep quiet about the abuse, and soon the Viscount found himself in the midst of an impending scandal. In cohorts with his aunt, he resolved the issue in the cruelest possible fashion: spreading vicious gossip about Elizabeth, undermining every one of her relations, leaving the Bennets as helpless as they were penniless.

And then… then it was just as his aunt had predicted. Having had her virtue stolen, unable to find any other form of employment and with a reputation far worse than ruined, Elizabeth had no choice but to support her family as best she could, selling herself to any man unscrupulous enough to take her. A position of a long-time mistress was far beyond anything she could aspire to. Instead, she had to take one-time lovers in that squalid little room.

And he… he had stood firmly by his family. He had supported their version of truth. He had cut her in public. He had refused to give honest testimony in Edward Gardiner's case. He had come into the squalid little room and crudely stuffed a five-pound note in her face, demanding to bed her. The resounding slap that she gave him he called, in all his disdain and hauteur, "uncooperative."

And why? All because he had allowed his former love to transform into poisonous bitterness when presented with the evidence of her betrayal. His thoughts at the time span round and round and round the fact that she had apparently misled him all along, at the end choosing to entrap his titled cousin instead of accepting his honest proposal. Her subsequent misfortunes, he thought, were just deserts.

It has been a month now since he knew the truth, and at last he summoned enough courage to face her. Stopping the carriage outside of a small but well-kept house – where he had installed her anonymously a month prior, upon discovering the full extent of his enormous error – he mentally prepared himself for the confrontation.

Yet could anything prepare him for this? What could he do, what could he say, to erase even a minuscule fraction of the damage he had done? _He_ had passively stood by, tacitly helped, while her honest uncle was imprisoned and she was reduced to prostitution.

Mr. Stevens, the butler, opened the door, and recognizing his own employer, led him swiftly into the sitting room. She came in, lovely in a dark blue gown with a low décolletage. Lovely, but slim and haggard and pale. Her eyes, though, were as expressive as ever, and shone brighter than he had remembered as she gazed at him with absolute hatred.

"What are _you _doing here?" She spat.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. No words came out. No words were adequate to express the full extent of his contrition. In two swift strides, he reached where she stood, and he dropped to his knees, his arms and head against her legs, then lower, lower, until he could cover her small satin slippers with his tears and his repentant kisses.

She stood still as a statue, unresponsive to his half-coherent pleas for mercy. _Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. _What more could he say?

After a few seconds that felt like hours, she appeared to have regained her bearings, and sharply pushed him away with the tip of her shoe.

"Get away from me, you vile man!"

He looked up at her beautiful, haggard, slim, pale face. "Elizabeth…"

"I said get away from me. Now! I have no wish to see you or anyone from that oh-so-upstanding family of yours, _Mr. Darcy_._"_

He refused to follow her order. Still on his knees, he crawled after her, back into the middle of the drawing room, as she determinedly took several steps away from him. "Elizabeth, I did not know. What my cousin did to you was atrocious and unforgivable. What he and my aunt did to cover it up was just as bad. My aunt is cold in her grave by now, and thus escaped my rage, but my cousin, that blasted cousin, will receive his comeuppance! He escaped to the continent as soon as I called him out three weeks ago, but I have several men looking for him, and they have had promising leads. He will be punished, I promise you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!"

She had listened silently to his rant. When he finished, she let out a humorless chuckle. "And you, my _dearest _Fitzwilliam? Who will be punishing _you_ for your 'atrocious and unforgivable' behavior? Don't think that I don't know the part you played. You, who _knew_ my uncle's innocence, did not speak a word against the unjust accusations. It is on _your _consciousness that his death, some mere days after his release from prison, will forever rest."

"Wha – how?" He sputtered. Some weeks after Mr. Gardiner's incarceration, he had realized that it was terribly petty to let the man suffer because of resentment towards his niece. Darcy had gone and paid a handsome sum to see the older man immediately released. To now learn that those few weeks of incarceration had been enough to cause the man's death was horrifying.

"I didn't know," he whispered.

"You seem to not have known a fair lot of things, Mr. Darcy. Such a smart, educated, worldly man like you, and knowing so little!" She mocked.

He hung his head in silence for several long moments. Then, gathering his courage, spoke on: "My misdeeds are heavy indeed, Elizabeth. Please trust that I never meant any harm to your family. To you – I will admit I resented you enough to convince myself that you deserved your fate." Her face contorted in a brief expression of pain at his admission, and he lowered his eyes to the floor. "I have no wish to be anything but honest with you, Elizabeth. Forgive me if my words cause you any further pain. I have been terrible, and I do not expect you to ever fully forgive me. As to your question… that is – who should punish me… I think it would rather be fit if you took on that job." He looked up at her hopefully. With his newfound knowledge, having let go of the layers of resentment that he had used to shield his heart, he now loved her with all his being. And despised himself for what he had done to her. He could see plainly that she despised him just as much, and thought that she might receive some small amount of satisfaction from taking revenge on one of those responsible for her pain. He rather looked forward to any pain she might wish to bestow upon him in return.

She narrowed her eyes, studying him, and dragged out her silence. Her gaze made him nervous. Yet, somehow, the nervousness was not all bad; there was some amount of almost titillating anticipation coursing through him at her evaluating gaze. _What is she looking for? Does she see what she wants? Am I good enough for whatever it is she is searching?_

"And how do you propose I administer your punishment, Mr. Darcy?" She asked in a detached tone that was, to his utter delight, a shade lighter than her previous venomous retorts.

"In any way you wish, Elizabeth."

She came up to him, her movement measured and regal, and slapped him sharply across the face. "I do not recall allowing you such familiarity, _Mr. Darcy._"

He lowered his head. "I beg your pardon, Miss Bennet." Last time she slapped him, he had been incensed and haughty. Now, he rejoiced. This was the first contact he had had with her in a year, the first sign that she was still willing to touch him, even if only to chastise him.

She huffed. "Clearly, propriety, as well as honor, is something you were not property taught in that upper _ton _upbringing of yours. Proud, self-righteous, selfish. Tell me, how can someone who calls himself a gentleman behave as abominably as you?"

After some thought, he answered her truthfully: "I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Caring for none beyond my own family circle; thinking meanly of all the rest of the world; wishing at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was until a month ago, and such I will continue to be if you do not condescend to teach me otherwise, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! By you, I hope to be properly humbled. Any punishment you choose to bestow on me, I will willingly take. And perhaps eventually I will learn to please a woman worthy of being pleased."

"I know a good part of your family is just as rotten – if not more – than you… but did your parents, at least, not attempt to discipline you into an honorable gentleman? How I wish they had thrashed that selfishness and mean-thinking out of you!" She sounded almost wistful, and he felt ashamed. Indeed, if only his parents had done a better job disciplining him, he would not have let his pride and resentment lead him to contribute to her ruin.

He felt his heart race, as an idea struck him. "You are absolutely right. They did not, but, perhaps, that is… perhaps it is not entirely too late, Miss Bennet? Would you be willing to perform the duty they had shirked?"

Her eyes widened as she registered his meaning. The ensuing silence was a torture, as he felt more exposed than he had ever been before. _Did I just ask Elizabeth to thrash me like a little boy? _He could not understand why he found the idea appealing.

"Very well," she pronounced coolly at last. "Go outside to your carriage and ask the boy to give you the riding crop. Do not neglect to inform him precisely for which purpose you require his crop: that it will be used to thrash your bare backside in order to punish you for your poor behavior."

Darcy's heartbeat was now thumping loudly in his ears, and he felt his palms begin to sweat. He was at once mortified and excited by her instructions. Not having time to debate the source of the latter feeling, he spared only half a moment to the former. His reputation would be in tatters… but then, it probably already was: he had put a notorious woman from the demimonde up in this house and has been visiting with her alone for the past hour. It had not mattered to him when he feverishly searched for her and had her moved. His sister had been married six months prior. His extended family he now firmly detested. His own reputation mattered little, as he had no intention of marrying anyone other than this unfortunate woman whom they had pushed into the demimonde. What was this additional little bit of humiliation? It was nothing compared to what he deserved, compared to the year of humiliation he had allowed his Elizabeth to suffer…

"Yes, Miss Bennet." He rose from his knees, and quickly exited the building.

Once outside, he spotted his carriage and nervously approached the young man sat idly whistling on top. "Jimmy, may I borrow your riding crop?"

Before he had a chance to provide the requisite explanation, Jimmy, a lad of nineteen who had served the Darcy family all his life, eagerly extended him the tool. "Yes, of course, Mr. Darcy, sir."

Embarrassed, Darcy knew he had to proceed with the clearly unncessary explanation. "You see… it is required for my discipline. I will be whipped with this riding crop on my bare buttocks as punishment for my poor behavior."

Nodding briefly at the shocked Jimmy, he quickly scurried back into the house.

When he returned into the drawing room, he saw her with her back turned towards him, gazing out of the window. She must have watched him humiliate himself in front of his carriage boy, for her. That thought pleased him. Cautiously, he approached, bent back onto his knees, extended the crop in one hand towards her, and spoke softly. "Here is the riding crop, madam. Please punish me for my misbehavior."

She turned sharply towards him, watching him with an unreadable expression. After some thought, her face hardened with resolve, and she took the crop in her hand.

"Rise, lower your breeches and drawers to your knees, and bend over the table. I want your buttocks raised high up in the air, Mister!"

He was nine-and-twenty years old, and she was speaking to him as to an errant child. His cheeks burned with embarrassment. Inside, he was giddy with some odd feeling of excited curiosity. He had not been disciplined in any way since his parents died, since he had been alone and uncared for. Perhaps in her attempts to correct him, she might come to care for him just a little, providing the guiding hand he had missed for so long?

He turned away from her as he unfastened his breeches, seeking to preserve as much modesty as he could in his knowledge that he would soon be presenting his bare backside for her whipping.

"There is no reason to be coy, Mr. Darcy." She came around so that he was once again facing her, and fixed an unperturbed gaze on his lower half. With shaking fingers, he pulled his breeches and drawers down right in front of her eyes, exposing his manhood for her viewing. His humiliation was complete when he felt said manhood begin to stir under her unwavering gaze. _Damnation! Could I behave in any less of a gentlemanly manner?! I am about to be whipped for my transgressions, and yet the mere fact that she is looking at my private parts is arousing me? What must she think of me now?_

"Now, now, Mr. Darcy," she sing-sang in a mocking tone, stroking the tip of the riding crop against his quickly rising member. The touch completed the job: he was now fully aroused, eyes closed, groaning. "This is not like any of the times you have undressed in front of a lady before. You are about to be punished, not pleasured!" She flicked the crop with a little more force right over his tight testes, and he yelped slightly.

"I – that is – I have never been in this position before." She quirked an elegant eyebrow, and, blushing, he elaborated. "I have never undressed in front of a lady before."

"You mean you did not have to do the chore of undressing yourself?" She looked disgusted.

"No. No! I mean that I have never been undressed in front of a lady, er, woman, any woman. Well, other than my mother and my nurse and…" He noticed that he was blabbering and fell silent.

"Are you an innocent, Mr. Darcy?" She asked, sounding surprised.

"Yes, of course. I am a gentleman. My father had taught me that a true gentleman must give the same deference to his wife as he expects from her. Other than the one moment of weakness you have witnessed a year ago, I have never had the slightest intention of sharing that part of myself with anyone other than my future wife." _With anyone other than you, _he added in his mind.

She almost smiled. "I am glad to see that your parents have taught you _something _right, at least. Now, over the table."

Quickly, almost eagerly, he followed her command. He was curious to see how his punishment would progress. His manhood was still half-upraised.

"Ask me politely to punish you."

He said the first thing that came to mind. "Please, Miss Bennet, whip my bottom. I have been a very naughty boy and deserve to be punished."

He thought that the swift stinging swish that followed meant that she was pleased. "How many strokes of the crop do you think a naughty boy like you deserves, Mr. Darcy?" It was both humiliating and erotic to hear her call him so formally by his name while he was in this position.

"As many as you are willing to give me, Miss Bennet."

Her hummed agreement was punctuated with another stroke. "You will receive twenty strokes of the crop, ten on each cheek of your naughty bare buttocks. I expect you to count and thank me for each. When you thank me, tell me why the stroke was deserved – what offense you had committed to earn it." She sounded so assured, so confident. He wondered how many of her former clients had the same penchant for her discipline that he was now beginning to discover.

His thoughts were interrupted with the stinging stroke. "One," he rasped out. "Thank you, Miss Bennet, for punishing me for not trusting you."

Another. "Two. Thank you, Miss Bennet, for spanking me for not defending you."

Another. "Three. Thank you, madam, for whipping me for my arrogance."

They continued on in this way until he had exhausted the most somber of his offenses, and moved into more titillating territory.

"Fourteen. Thank you, madam, for punishing my presumption of asking you last year to bed an undeserving man like me."

"Fifteen. Thank you, Miss Bennet, for whipping my bare buttocks for imposing on you to serve as my disciplinarian."

"Spread your legs shoulder wide, naughty boy," she ordered sharply. He immediately obliged and felt the light touch of the crop on his testes. His manhood throbbed at the attention. With his fantasy of the one woman he loved tainted by his misplaced mistrust, he had not touched himself in over a year. His control was quickly slipping.

She delivered the next stroke on his right cheek. He took it a step further, murmuring: "Sixteen. Thank you, Miss Bennet, for thrashing my naughty bottom as punishment for allowing my virgin member to become aroused during my discipline."

He heard her gasp at his audacity. "Bad boy," she whispered heatedly, and he felt a soft stroke against his taut testes. The pain was exhilarating, and he moaned. "Who knew that virgin boys could be as naughty as you, Mr. Darcy?"

He felt the touch of the whip replaced with the infinitely more pleasurable touch of her finger, sliding agonizingly slowly from the base of his member upwards. She did not reach the tip before he exploded with the most powerful climax he had ever experienced. Spent, he closed his eyes and allowed his punished bottom to sag over the table.

The ensuing lick of the crop was far more painful than any of the preceding strokes. "Did I not make myself clear when I requested your bare buttocks high up in the air, Mr. Darcy?" She sounded angry. "Your punishment is not over."

Hurriedly, he returned into his punishment position, and responded swiftly when the next stroke hit. "Seventeen. Thank you, madam, for correcting me with a whipping for the disobedience of lowering my punished rear."

She continued with the harder strokes. "Eighteen. Thank you, Miss Bennet, for disciplining me for not following your commands."

Irritated, she asked: "What about your main offense? Who permitted you to squirt over my carpet?"

Another stroke. "Nineteen. Thank you, madam, for disciplining your naughty boy for sullying the carpet."

A huff of frustration. The hardest stroke yet. Suddenly, he understood. "Twenty. Thank you, Miss Bennet, for punishing me for gaining my release without your permission. I was a very naughty boy to do so. My manhood belongs to you, and only you have the power to allow it to gain release." He was amazed that the said manhood was slowly stirring back into life. Somehow, the idea of belonging to her in this way, of having his pleasure inextricably linked to _her_, was exhilarating.

"That's correct, Mr. Darcy," she pronounced almost contentedly. "And I don't want to ever learn that my naughty little boy has been playing with his virgin member without my permission." In response, he could only moan.

His whipping complete and his manhood almost back at full mast, he was looking forward to learning what she had in store for him next.

"Now, boy, clean up the mess you made." He knew better than to pull up his drawers before heading for the door to ask one of the servants for a wet cloth. He felt his face heat up with humiliation as he imagined the elderly Mr. Stevens beholding him in this state, but he might as well get used to it. He had already told Jimmy in no uncertain terms about his punishment, and the entirety of the staff inside the house must have heard the discipline session. The pleasure he had experienced and the contentment of atoning to _her_ was well worth the humiliation.

He did not make it to the door before he heard her cold voice. "Where are you going, naughty boy?"

"Um, I was just… I was going to ask for a wet cloth to clean up my mess, as you requested, Miss Bennet."

She shook her head sternly. "None of that nonsense! You made this mess like a dirty boy, and you will clean it up like one. I want the carpet _licked clean_, Mr. Darcy."

At first he was appalled. Then resigned. Then, on his knees under the table tasting his own salty seed, he was almost aroused by such a display of her power over him. He belonged to her, rightfully. She had embraced more fully than he had ever hoped the role of his punisher, and he felt as if an enormous weight that he had been carrying for a month had been suddenly lifted. Cognizant of the fact that his freshly punished, glowing buttocks were protruding from under the table, he lifted them up and moved them slowly from side to side, for her amusement. She immediately gratified him with a few idle flicks of the crop. He smiled at having pleased her.

Later, he had to humbly beg the kitchen maids to soap the remnants of his juices from his mouth, before she took him to her bedroom and used his face for her own pleasure. He had never tasted anything so wonderful, and as he held her after her release, he murmured tenderly:

"Marry me, Elizabeth." He knew that later, if he succeeded, he might receive another whipping on his bare bottom for addressing her by her given name against her explicit orders. He desperately hoped for it. "Allow me to bestow upon you all my worldly goods, and allow me to be yours. I will not be a typical husband; I have no wish to possess you. God knows I have wronged you as much as any man can wrong a woman he proclaims to love. Please, I beg you, marry me and allow me to spend the rest of my days atoning for my atrocious behavior. I will be a model husband, your servant, your slave. Should I ever do anything to displease you, you may punish me in any way you see fit. I will never demand to exercise my marital rights, I promise! My manhood belongs to you from this day onwards, but I will remain an innocent until I redeem myself enough to earn the privilege of uniting with you, if ever. And should you find more deserving men to father your offspring, please, take as many lovers as you wish. I will gladly bring up any child of yours as my own. Only allow me to be yours, Elizabeth. _Please_."

She stared at him, deep in though, for a few moments. There were tears glistening in her eyes. Then she put one hand on his cheek and with the other tugged roughly on his hair. She brought his face to hers and gave him a forceful, searing, passionate kiss.


End file.
